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Running Up That Hill
Thoughts provoked by the new Number One.
Few produce Mass Appeal Music these days. Why? Because current music industry executives are unable to hear, spot or make mass appeal hits so they rely on specialist sounds, appealing to fans that like a certain area of music, most of which has no broad appeal but making enough to pay their salaries and those of a few others with limited expenses (office space, promotion and marketing, advances, A&R costs, secretaries, company car petrol costs etc).
And the odd revived oldie like Kate Bush gets tugged in now and then (which luckily includes some of my back catalogue). Everyone is astonished that past idols (like BTS, Harry Styles) can be beaten by tired old hits. But today’s younger music fans, astonished to hear something from the 60s, 70s or 80s, when we made genuine mass appeal hits, grab it, stream it, play it, buy it with enthusiasm. And their parents and grand parents are delighted too.
And media - which can be manipulated (“it’s a great story”) - happily goes along with it. Intrigued, those buying into media hype (millions these days - stupid Covid, stupid Brexit, stupid Trump, stupid Boris, stupid Paddington Bear - I still can’t remember his name - the Ukraine guy) listen on Tik Tok or Spotify or You Tube or wherever and go “Wow - this is really catchy and good”.
I remember when I was released from prison (where I’d served time for crimes that had never taken place), the tabloids howled with Front Page hatred (“Don’t Give King A Thing” screamed The Sun). That week my music brought me in tens of thousands of pounds (there’s a photo of the bank statement in the Photos section). Entirely thanks to the media listing my hits (in those days it was all download sales).
These days sites like Netflix earn me, Kate Bush and others decent weekly monies - far more than today’s chart toppers make, however pretty they may be.
We just keep on Running Up that media Hill - it may change (and those of us bright enough, unlike Amber Heard, to make sure any income is untouchable by liars or lawyers) but there are ways to get to the top without too many criminals managing to grab the odd handful of cash as we clamber up the new media mountains on our way.
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